The Lying Room by Nicci French: A Book Review

Nicci French is two people: Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, a married couple who have been writing psychological thrillers together since the mid-90s, selling over 15 million. The Lying Room is their 13th book.

Synopsis

The Lying Room is a standalone psychological thriller published in 2019. Neve Connolly is a married woman in her late forties, the primary earner for her family, quietly overwhelmed by the relentless demands of work, husband, and three children. She has been having an affair with her boss, Saul. The story starts with her receiving a text summoning her to his flat. When she arrives, she finds his body. Instead of calling the police, she cleans the flat of every trace of her presence and walks away, a decision that sets off a chain of lies, as a detective begins circling.

My review

Co-authors Nicci Gerrard and Sean French met while working at the New Statesman in 1989, married, and began writing together. That process is more interesting to me than the book, if I am honest. The premise is solid. A woman finds her murdered lover and cleans the scene rather than calling the police. It’s not a bad hook. The pacing is competent. The plot moves. But crime fiction, as a genre, is not quite my territory unless it does something to break the mould or blend into something else.

• Gone Girl does it.
• A Ladder to the Sky does it.
• The Dry does it.
• The Kind Worth Killing does it.

The Lying Room is a well-made example of the genre without doing anything to transcend it, and for me that is the difference between three stars and four. Then there is Mabel. Neve’s teenage daughter (Mabel) is sullen, entitled, and a recurring source of crisis throughout the novel. Her parents revolve their attention around her in ways that frustrated me as a reader. She causes problems, not in a way that generates interesting narrative tension, but in a way that made me want to shout. I find sullen teenagers one of the most irritating tropes in fiction, and Mabel is a solid representative of the type. Crime fiction lovers rate this book highly. It is popular, well-reviewed within the genre, and Nicci French have a devoted following for good reason. If crime is your genre, or if you enjoy a whodunnit, this will likely reward you more than it rewarded me. It is a good book for what it is. What it is just isn’t entirely my thing.

What I liked / what I didn’t

What I liked

The premise is strong, and the hook works. The detective is well-written—Neve’s anxiety around him is palpable and transfers effectively to the reader. The pacing is competent, and the plot moves without dragging. For crime lovers, this delivers what the genre promises.

What I didn’t

The book does not break any new ground or blend its genre with anything else, which is what crime fiction needs to do to fully engage me. Mabel, the sullen teenage daughter, is the kind of character I find genuinely irritating in fiction, present throughout and a recurring source of plot complication without being interesting enough to justify it. The writing is functional rather than beautiful.

Final verdict

The Lying Room is a competently written, well-plotted domestic thriller from an experienced writing partnership in the crime genre. If you enjoy crime fiction and like working out who did it, this will probably be a good read. If you are like me and find the genre engaging only when it does something unexpected or crosses into other territory, you may find it average. It’s not an insult to what it is, just an honest assessment of the mismatch. Three stars. Recommended for crime lovers. For everyone else, start with Gone Girl or The Dry first, and come back to this one if you want more.

Where Can I Read It?